Rubio’s A No-Go?

Robert Draper profiles young Republicans hoping to lead the GOP out of the wilderness. A teaser:

I asked [David] Plouffe, wasn’t the G.O.P. just one postmodern presidential candidate — say, a Senator Marco Rubio — away from getting back into the game?

Pouncing, he replied: “Let me tell you something. The Hispanic voters in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico don’t give a damn about Marco Rubio, the Tea Party Cuban-American from Florida. You know what? We won the Cuban vote! And it’s because younger Cubans are behaving differently than their parents. It’s probably my favorite stat of the whole campaign. So this notion that Marco Rubio is going to heal their problems — it’s not even sophomoric; it’s juvenile! And by the way: the bigger problem they’ve got with Latinos isn’t immigration. It’s their economic policies and health care. The group that supported the president’s health care bill the most? Latinos.”

The Republican savior has to thread the needle: There is room for Republicans to grow their vote in the Rust Belt. But they’ve been unable to do so in their current configuration. The party’s message and messengers aren’t working well enough. A galvanizing candidate, someone who can shake up the chess board, someone who can attach new policies to existing demographic groups and grow them, is what Republicans need. That’s why superficial qualities like Marco Rubio’s youth and, yes, his ethnicity, matter more.